Child play expert Gennie Gorback and award-winning children's author Kate Allen Fox team up to offer this practical and fun guide for parents, educators, and caregivers on the benefits of play for children, and how to encourage more of it. Go Play is full of ideas for play, including recipes,

The inspiring story of Angeline Jackson, who stood up to Jamaica’s oppression of queer youth to demand recognition and justice.

Some congregations and some ministers do not find a match. The UUA Transitions Team is available to offer care, guidance, and perspective.

These are the important dates and milestones for settled ministry searches, for ministers, search committees, and governing boards.

Here is more detail about what to expect during candidating week, and afterward.

After the official start date, the minister starts to focus on fostering relationships and building trust, the cornerstones of a successful ministry.

After the vote to call, candidating week is complete, but there still a few important tasks for the search team, governing board, and ministers.

The vote to call a minister is one of the greatest responsibilities and privileges of the congregation's membership. Bylaws provide the rules, trust-building shapes the outcome.

Candidating week is not just a time for congregational leaders, staff, and members to spend time with the candidate. It is a time for the congregation to experience the candidate as their minister.

The first chapter of the new ministry is candidating week. Along with being a chance for minister and congregation to learn about each other, it sets the tone going forward.

The announcement of the candidate’s name can be made when all four conditions are met, contract finalization, background check initialized, former congregation informed, consent to make the announcement.

All congregations should do a criminal background check on their candidates, if for no other reason than consistency in hiring practices and the ability to honestly report they have done their due diligence. Receiving the report can take anywhere from one to four weeks. The background check only

As soon as the candidate minister accepts the verbal offer on offer day, the candidate may be turned over to the full negotiating team for confidential talks.

At this point, your search team has made an offer and your candidate minister has accepted it! But there are few essential tasks before the offer is finalized and the candidate is presented to the wider congregation.

The search team takes at least a week to discern who they would invite to be the final candidate using a "yes," "maybe," or "no" ranking.

The next stage in the search process are the pre-candidating weekends, which will help you learn more about each minister and how they might match.

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Starting in mid-January, the search team will be discerning which applicants will be invited to be their pre-candidates, both by interviewing the ministers and checking their initial references.

Once the list of applicants is received, reviewed, and additional materials exchanged, the search team is ready to start the initial screening, which will take about a week. A few more applications may be received during this window of time.

Finish and submit the congregational record by mid-November so that you can polish your search profile by the December 1st release date.